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Two issues come
into play developing an approach to preparing any Business Plan: Determination of the content of a business plan, and
Recognition of the actual components of the business plan. Indeed until now
the actual components of a Business Plan have
not been made quite explicit, as all discourse has focused on
understanding the functional objective, which
is to provide performance snapshot of the steady-state operation of the business at
some point in time in the future. By this defined functional
objective
then, a Business Plan must derive from the growth
plans developed for the venture entity.
However, the growth plans and the number of
such growth plans for a
specific entity depends on the operating form of the entity as per
visualized by the entrepreneur. As already noted, regarding the
essence of Business Plans the extent
of visualization
of an entity by the founding entrepreneur is constrained to become
consistent with the most proximate lifecycle stage of the entity as
definable from an analysis of the Corporate Lifecycle of the Adizes
Principle.
Hence a tenable position, at least at first iteration, is that
before even an entrepreneur begins to write a business plan, the
specific type of business plan appropriate for the venture based on
the lifecycle stage of existence of the venture, is subject to the
future-time period for which the entrepreneur can envision the entity.
Each of the
lifecycle stage is also characterized by a specific organization
structure, hence a characteristic set of growth plans.
Identification and analysis of the growth plans descriptive for a
specific entity necessarily demands the construction of the
organization hierarchy for a company in the corporate lifecycle
stage descriptive of the entity. In effect then determining
the business plan that is applicable for a
particular venture boils down to defining the organizational
hierarchy for the entity.
Obviously,
this determination then explains the
dominant reason for the difficulty in determination of the right
business plan for a specific business:
The aforementioned two issues at play are so complex, interactive
and intimately tied into the tasks and activities of the business
entities that as a result of the interactive dynamic
there are can be, possibly
twenty variants
of venture growth Plans.
An
understanding of these twenty variants of business plans obtains
only through a detailed analysis of the business functional tasks,
as categorized by the time-honored organizational structure, that
must characteristically be performed by any venture in each stage of
provide
Adizes Corporate
Lifecycle Curve, that every venture necessarily possibly evolve
into.
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However,
restricting the focus, for the moment, to the standard functional
requirements of a corporation, given that such requirement
essentially stems from military organizational norms, a venture
entity must necessarily have organizational layers that attend to
such issues as Corporate Strategic Goal,
Growth Strategic Plan,
Growth Tactics Plans, Growth Tactics Implementation Plans, and
Operations Plans.
The rationale for restricting
focus to the standard defined functional requirement of a
corporation is supported by the assessment under
Rationalizing the
Mindset, that the vision of the entrepreneur should necessarily
cause the founding of a corporation.
A clear understanding of the
requirements of each organizational layer of functional tasks, is
essential to the formation, stability and mission specific
efficacious operation of the corporation. The recognition is that
the salient characteristics of any corporation are its
operations-specific functional tasks that deal with the institution
of efficiency in the performance of these tasks.
In the seemingly convoluted
nature of paradoxes, the upper layers define the lower layers, which
in turn define, beginning with the Operations layer, the internal
structures of the upper layers. This situation arises from the fact
the Operations layers can be and is often defined through Porters
Strategic Forces Model. the decoupling of the paradoxical state can
then be accomplished with methods from Art of Learning
Organizations by Peter Seng .
On the basis of the analysis
so far performed clearly, the entrepreneur who is faced with the
task of preparing a business plan must adopt the
perspective that a Business Plan as required is actually composed
of three corporate management plans: The Growth Strategic Plan, The
Growth Tactical Plan and the Growth Tactics Implementation Plan,
given that only these plans are forward looking as required by the
functional objective of the Business Plan. These are usually
packaged into a single unit for purposes of presentation to venture
Funding firms and commercial banks.
Rationally, Business Plan
can now be said to be the same as the Growth Tactics Plan. However,
because the Tactical Plan is cerebral and the Operations are
practical and usually the cerebral tasks need to be translated into
substantive practical tasks, the transitioning of the cerebral
strategy to the practical tactics, is frequently
accomplished with the
Growth Tactics Implementation Plan; which is usually
made part of The Business Plan as Plan Appendixes.
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specifically, then, the Implementation Plans is recommended to be
made the Appendix of the Growth Tactics Business Plan. At a minimum
then, The Business Plan must now consists of the following
- Business Plan :- Growth Tactical Plan
- Appendixes:- Growth Tactics Implementation Plan
However, for all intents and
purposes, the
Growth-Tactics
Implementation Plan usually has
the same sequence of contents as the Growth Tactical Plan.
Now then going forward, the
posture towards developing the Business Plan for all intents and
purposes should be that the Business Plan is the same as the
Growth Tactics Plan. This then is the material that may be made
available to banks and financiers. Because this document is more
cerebral than practical, its release to the banks and financiers do
not pose the risk of losing the entrepreneur's idea for his own
venture. Yet it must be understood that the Functional Business Plan
is documentations of the Growth Tactics Plan and the
Growth Tactics Implementation Plan. Hence, the
entrepreneur must recognize that the Implementation Plan must never
be parted with even for a moment. Interested parties may view the
Plan under the watchful eyes of the entrepreneur, even as is
advocated for the Business Plan Appendixes in White's Entrepreneur's
Guide.
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